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US rights advocate Cohen visits
former president
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Law professor Jerome Cohen passes
supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian after visiting Chen at the Taipei
Veterans General Hospital yesterday.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York
University and human rights advocate, yesterday visited former president Chen
Shui-bian (陳水扁) at a hospital in Taipei and was said to be planning to establish
a committee to review Chen’s human rights.
It was the first time Cohen had met Chen since the former president was
imprisoned for corruption.
During a 60-minute conversation Chen was eloquent despite speaking weakly,
Cohen, 82, told reporters outside the Taipei Veterans General Hospital yesterday
morning.
Dozens of Chen’s supporters held placards bearing slogans such as “Save A-bian”
and “Political persecution” while chanting “A-bian, not guilty” outside the
hospital.
Asked for his opinion on medical parole for Chen, who is suffering from various
health problems, including depression, Cohen said he intended to collect as much
information on the case as possible before making an assessment.
Responding to a media inquiry about how Chen’s case would be handled in the US,
Cohen said there were three possible scenarios; granting medical parole, sending
him back to prison or reaching a settlement and having Chen hospitalized for
treatment — inside or outside of prison. He added that the decision on which
hospital Chen stayed in would probably have to include consideration of where
Chen’s family lives so that it would be easier for them to visit.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), who
accompanied the professor on the visit, said Cohen was planning to establish a
committee to make a complete review of Chen’s human rights and is scheduled to
visit Taiwan again in February.
The committee will conduct a comprehensive investigation before reaching a
resolution early next year on whether it would appeal for Chen’s human rights,
Gao said.
Gao said that Cohen asked Chen in detail about his treatment in prison and
hospital, such as the size of his cell, the numbers of permitted family visits,
correspondence and a refusal to allow Chen to work in the prison factory.
Chen told Cohen, who played an integral role in securing Chinese dissident Chen
Guangcheng’s (陳光誠) release earlier this year: “It would be better to be ruled by
the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] than by [President] Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)]”
because no one could help him get out of prison, Gao said.
If Cohen, who was Ma’s professor at Harvard University, and the committee decide
to support Chen Shui-bian’s human rights, “it will be up to Ma whether to
respect his professor’s cause,” Gao said.
The former president’s office expressed its gratitude for Cohen’s visit and
refuted Ma’s comment that Chen Shui-bian had received “the best possible medical
treatment” in a press release issued yesterday afternoon.
The office said that according to a Control Yuan report, Chen Shui-bian is
suffering from four life-threatening complications, including severe depression,
and requires further treatment. The former president should not be sent back to
prison, the office said.
Cohen, who earlier met briefly with Ma, met with Minister of Justice Tseng
Yung-fu (曾勇夫) in the afternoon.
Vice Minister of Justice Wu Chen-huan (吳陳鐶) told reporters after the meeting
that Cohen did not offer his position on or suggestions about Chen Shui-bian’s
medical situation.
It is a “domestic issue,” Wu cited Cohen as saying.
Cohen asked whether the former president’s judicial cases were all closed and
whether his and his family’s assets had been confiscated, to which Tseng said
that four court cases were still pending and that the assets could be
confiscated only after final verdicts are given, Wu said.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
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